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Launching a new business from scratch can be an exciting process. Selecting your first job, narrowing down your business model, and defining a clear action plan are all common exciting experiences that entrepreneurs go through. But even these first steps can present challenges to overcome.
My first startup was an Internet company called Joyo.com, which I co-founded in late 1999. It was the early days, when the Internet was still very young and full of undiscovered potential. The first three months of Joyo saw many heated debates within my team as we struggled to find agreement on what we wanted our startup to achieve, with so many possibilities available in the internet space at the time, from e-commerce and web portals to travel and gaming sites, it was difficult to decide the best course of action.
In these moments, a founder must have confidence in their ability to make difficult decisions and stick to them. This type of constant resilience can help guide entrepreneurs in the early stages of a business. So, at the end of February 2000, I decided to create Joyo.com as the first B2C e-commerce platform in China. Joyo became the largest such site in China at the time and was acquired by Amazon in 2004 and renamed Amazon China.
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My second venture, DHgate, was a much bigger challenge. As China’s first B2B e-commerce platform, it has been extremely difficult to demonstrate our business model and attract investment. I discovered how cold and unforgiving the business world can truly be when we almost ran out of funding shortly before launching in 2004. An investor who had signed a contract to fund us suddenly reneged on his promise at the eleventh hour, meaning I had to dip into my savings to pay the remaining DHgate employees, never knowing if that week would be the last.
Without sufficient funds, we gave up the office and moved to a 20m2 conference room next to the bathroom of a friend’s company. My office chair was broken, but my hope was strong. I was able to find a way to stay focused on the positives and possibilities. Above all, I looked within myself for strength and confidence in my business.
Beyond the lack of funding, the biggest problem we faced in the early days was that no one trusted us. This was in the mid-2000s, when traditional commerce was still booming. No one believed that the entire complex process of international trade could be accomplished online. Validating our business model was like running a marathon: a long and challenging test.
Most entrepreneurs experience “win-or-go-home” moments like these. Mentally, the early stages can be the most difficult period in building a business. However, we persevered and today, DHgate is one of the world’s leading B2B cross-border e-commerce platforms.
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The toughest challenges yield the greatest rewards
Keeping a young company afloat is a daily struggle. Challenges and obstacles come from all directions: you may face limited access to capital, an undersized and overloaded team, a lack of market recognition in a perhaps overcrowded market, and a mass lack of understanding about the business or to technology, among other factors.
Your staff and investors all have high expectations, and you need to set high standards for yourself, too. Keeping motivation and energy high in the office is a constant challenge, especially when everyone knows you feel tired and anxious. This creates an incredible amount of pressure and stress, which weighs heavily on the shoulders of founders who already battle self-doubt on a daily basis.
However, running your own business can also be incredibly rewarding. Every entrepreneurial journey has its ups and downs; if you can find the right path and persevere despite obstacles, you can achieve things that no one has ever done before and your efforts can be repaid a hundredfold. These growing pains are also worth it for your personal development.
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Strong founders who make it through the early stages of entrepreneurship tend to have a few key characteristics. New founders can benefit from embracing these three key values or standards to hold themselves to:
1. Speak to your heart about following your passions
Your foundation journey will be made even easier when you follow a dream that you are truly passionate about. As a bonus, you can also make your team more passionate. When you face difficult decisions, speak to your heart for guidance. I’ve done this many times in my life to help me choose a path that stimulates my imagination and holds my interest.
2. Be brave and dare to do difficult things
If you listen to your heart, you will hear an answer and your next course of action will become clear. So, take action! Start looking for opportunities and you will find them – it’s pretty much inevitable if you look hard enough. As long as you know what your goal is, it doesn’t matter if you don’t see the path from the start. The important thing is to start walking on that path.
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3. Be persistent
Eventually, you will stumble on your path. Everyone does. The key is to celebrate your failures, learn from them, and move forward. Persistence just requires that you keep showing up every day to pursue your goals. If you listen to your heart and follow your passions, optimism and confidence in your projects, you will succeed much more easily. It may sound cliché, but I believe that while it isn’t magical at first, tenacious perseverance in any goal can create magic.